CAN someone call material security?
part 2
heya, reader! how’s your week been? did you listen to the podcast i recommended last week? if not, no worries. i like that we all do whatever we want here at the anti-experience. if you aren’t a paying subscriber and want a brilliant podcast rec on plant intelligence hit me up and i’ll be happy to share :)
this is part 2 of our material security chat and i wanna talk about moss for a second.
i really like this definition. it kinda feels relatable. Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote an entire book on mosses (Gathering Moss) that i now absolutely must read after listening to the aforementioned podcast. here are some things i learned + notes i took:
moss inhabits pretty much every ecosystem on earth, there are something like 22,000 species of em, they can freakin’ clone themselves(!!) and are an integral part of a functioning forest. they are teachers of simplicity. they remind us that there is power in being small- good news for me! their small size is one of the biggest reasons they are successful. they live in tiny layers and work with natural forces all over the world. they flourish by working with the natural processes of the earth. mosses teach us about living within our means. they thrive in spaces where other plants cannot live. mosses have low competitive ability - because they are small and they don’t grab resources efficiently therefore they must live where the dominant, competitive plants cannot live. robin wall kimmerer explains,
the way that they [mosses] do this really brings into question the whole premise that competition is what really structures biological evolution and biological success because mosses are not good competitors at all and yet they’re the oldest plants on the planet. they have persisted here for 350 million years, they oughta be doing something right here and one of those somethings, i think, has to do with their ability to cooperate with one another. to share the limited resources they have, to really give more than they take. mosses build soil, they purify water , they are like the coral reefs of the forest… they are just engines of biodiversity and yet they are only a centimeter tall.
i think it was 2 newsletters go where i mentioned that every single class in my 2-week-long-childhood-karate-career gave me a nauseous feeling. at first i tried to blame the ramen noodles but let’s be real my body was quite accustomed to those dinners at the time. the truth is simple, i’ve never been interested in fighting. it truly does make me sick (i will spare you many examples from my past). the Little Lex that was totally uninterested in competing with others on the mat wasn’t even aware of that fun fact that she would go on to try and survive late-stage capitalism in a country run by corporations. woooohooo. so imagine my delight in listening to this lil expose on mosses. they’re tiny and they thrive by co-existing well, by living within their means & sharing their abilities (their magic) with the world around them. mosses are the heroes i never knew i had. we know capitalism thrives on our competing with one another. boring!!! that success, in this society, is measured by what you have and what you’re “doing” but, to me, this begs some questions: will accomplishing these societal goals amount to feeling truly successful for myself or will it lie in simply appearing successful to others? am i helping shift the paradigm or are am i perpetuating a broken one? darwin is dead and i don’t want to live in his one-dimensional world. what i believe is far more “productive” to the evolution of a functioning society than what you are doing is who you are being.
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i also don’t want to sell myself but i do want to offer myself where i am valued, where i am needed. my CV is confusing because it doesn’t follow a linear path. am i really going to state, once more, that time is not linear? yes, apparently i am. if you ask me, my broad background speaks to my willingness to pick up and learn things whenever i am called to. it speaks to my abilities and my adaptability. those are not things i will learn in institutions, as they function now, or by staying in the same field for 10 years. i am perfectly content knowing that things are constantly changing and that i absolutely know nothing at all. some would call that stupidity, others wisdom. the best part is- it doesn’t even matter!! i asked a friend how he was doing the other day and he responded, “wondering if faking it leads to making it you know the usual” to which i replied, “i think it’s always just faking it the trick is having fun widdit”. he liked that and i was glad because i like it too. i desire to be in a constant state of learning. i have never been moved by the idea of careers, as we have come to know them. i want to keep being challenged, keep acquiring new skill sets. i want the freedom to move with the wind, not fight with it or struggle against it. consistency is a key, yes, but at what point do you cross the line into stagnancy? do you have an idea, dear anti-Reader?
i am extremely materially secure in a global sense but it doesn’t feel that way when others have been quick to remind me (from an extremely privileged societal sense) that i am actually quite materially insecure. does that make me feel insecure? hell yeah it does! does it make me feel like i need to find some illusory sense of security like a job that i will probably hate, that will rob me of all my energy (power) for healthcare that is still expensive and an unfair paycheck (only speaking from experience)? you bet it does! but i’m trying to remind myself of what brought me here in the first place, where it is i want to go, where i want to use my precious energy, and what kind of world i plan to see, and if finding that type of material security is actually conducive to those things. the answer is almost always no but alas, we live in a society.
in the age of information we can always find something to fear. in my opinion, this is the most useless way for us to live right now. we know by now that outside forces will not protect us so i choose to focus my attention elsewhere. there are plenty of hamster wheels for us to spend our power but it’s important to ask yourself- who is this benefitting? i say this all the time, but i believe the real fear lies in thinking that the power is outside of you because frankly, it’s a fucking mess out there. spoiler alert for the 94324083th time, the way to shift anything is by shifting yourself. politics is a puppet show that i can no longer even pretend to care about. for me, it is money that’s currently testing my own personal relationship to fear. so here i am reminding myself that that is also a hamster wheel. if i’m constantly worried about money then i am not able to use my focus and attention to create my dream life, the way that i wanna see it lived. if i don’t keep recognizing my power then i will be ready and willing to give it away to the first thing that hangs it’s carrot of illusory security in front of my face. i am ready to hack this age old scarcity fear of mine.
so, how am i working to hack this? chaotically talking to you about it is one major way. if you’ve made it this far, thank you for being here you beautiful anti-Reader!! another way is looking for work that doesn’t require me to give my power to the machines i boldly oppose, to systems i am already watching crumble with gleeful eyes. (*a lil soliciting* if you know anyone looking for small but willing, quick-learning hands and a pretty open heart please do let me know!) but the most important way i am dealing with all of this is by de-centering e v e r y t h i n g and getting connected to my own body. being connected to my body has been a top priority of mine for the last few years and it has been alarming to see the amount of people in my life who choose to be completely disconnected from their own. i think this is one of our society’s deepest problems. i’m also trying to get better at feeling and listening to my own grief which, of course, is also the collective grief. grief is important because it reminds you how to love. grief, like mosses, is one of our greatest teachers. i think we’ve forgotten a lot of things along our traumatized paths. we are fed distraction and fear constantly but listening to our bodies can bring us back to the one and only thing we have control over. ourselves. our beautiful, badass selves.
if you wanna practice some spanish i recommend translating the wonderful exchange between the two magical beings known as alejandro jodorowsky and violeta parra below (it’s fitting i promise):
sending out a lot of love and abundance to you, anti-Reader! i love love and i wanna love better. i am glad we’re here together. i hope to see you back here again. write me any time! i’ve always longed for an anti-community <3 🐍🌞🌀🧚🏼♀️
enjoy this pic from a traditional pottery workshop i did this week
adios!